Butasan | Retro Review
Platform: Arcade
Year: 1987
Developer: NMK/Jaleco
Publisher: Jaleco
What exactly is Butasan? Well imagine Bomberman but on amphetamines, with no mazes, and everyone’s a pig. This is a fast paced, single-screen action arcade game from the 1980s and very different from anything else. In this game you play as a cute little pig wearing a rather fetching pair of cyan shorts. But don’t let his cute appearance deceive you, this little piggy wants blood! The aim is to pick up the bombs that litter the arena a hurl them at your enemies to blow them up.
Awwww, doesn’t he look sweet with those cute shorts and deadly exlosive!
Like all good 80s arcade games, this one wastes no time in getting to the action. You’ll see that there’s no shortage of bombs lying around and a bunch of hogs running to grab them. The bombs have numbers on which indicate how many seconds they take to explode once they’ve been thrown. When the bombs start counting down, make sure you don’t stick around or it’ll crispy bacon on the lunchtime menu. If you manage to hit one of your foes square in the face with a bomb, it will blow up there and then.
You have a couple of other moves in your repertoire to help you out. If you’re not holding a bomb you can slap your opponents with your trotters to stun them on the spot. The other move you have is a dodge. As you have probably guessed, you use that to dodge an enemy bomb.
There’s a bunch of power-ups to available including a speed boost and an extension to your throwing range. My favourite power-up is definitely the legally-distinct Godzilla-like kaiju suit. Not only does this little piggy look adorable in this get-up, it also helps him take an extra hit.
Hogzilla: Coming to a cinema near you!
Even though this game is rather simple, it doesn’t get boring. There’s just enough variety to stop it from getting stale. If you make it past a few levels, you’ll be rewarded with a swine-slapping bonus stage to earn a heap of extra points. There are loads of different enemy types which have their own stats and personalities to keep you on your toes. Some can take a few hits before becoming pork chops, and some are super aggressive. You’ll get a hint as to what each type is about with an enemy introduction screen that comes up between stages. These screens are good show of the charm that simply oozes out of this game. From the cute visuals to the referee pig that brings the bombs onscreen; this game is just bursting with character. Even if you get a game over, the fun doesn’t stop there; you get these screens with the piggy vowing his revenge against a voodoo doll or smashing a city dressed as Godzilla.
Never before has a videogame character been more relatable…
The Frantic action doesn’t have to be experienced alone. You can team up with a friend for some multiplayer mayhem. Unfortunately it only supports one or two players, this game would be an absolute riot (in the best possible sense) if four or more players were supported.
Unfortunately, this game never got a port to a home console. This is a shame as the bright and colourful visuals would have been right at home on the Master System. This game did get ported to some home computers however. In Japan the Sharp X68000 received a highly arcade accurate port in 1993. The Sharp X68000 was the only home port to retain the original name; this was changed to Psycho Pigs UXB for the other ports. The Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, MSX and Amstrad CPC all received ports with this moniker and a weird slightly-frightening punk-rock pig-man on the cover. Thankfully the arcade original is now available to play on the Switch, PS4 and Antstream.
In summary, this is a very cute looking game with fast-paced action, unique game play and shed loads of character. This is one I would definitely recommend. [9/10]
